A historical point of democracy unfolded last Friday when the citizens of this province voted to kill the harmonized sales tax (HST).
The vote total was not surprising as the backlash over the way the tax was introduced by the Liberal government was evident from day one. I questioned how the tax was introduced and the complete lack of respect that the Liberals showed the voters.
But now comes a big reality check and the arduous task of shifting back to the PST and GST model - a task that government says could take up to 18 months.
While there is no question that the Liberals should take the fall for the way the tax was introduced, many people, I feel, voted out of anger and frustration and chose to send a message to the Liberals that if you treat citizens with contempt and lie to them, you will be held accountable. And I have no problem with that. I just wish that those votes against the government would have been reserved for the next provincial election rather than killing a tax that I think has and will go a long way to benefiting this province.
I voted to keep the HST in place, and I'm not ashamed to admit that. I figure I will be chastised by many for holding this opinion and for writing this column, but so be it.
I think in a lot of ways, the bigger picture here was totally lost on a lot of people.
Transfers and money to regional districts and to small towns like Sechelt and Gibsons are now gone. Killing the tax has also put the kibosh of several major business deals that B.C. had with other provinces that would have had more far-reaching benefits and impacts for everyone.
Here on the Coast we have several projects that are crying out for government funding - funding that our governments can't come up with and are going to the federal and provincial governments for support. One, which we write about this week, is the planned improvement to the Sechelt airport. The District is still $3 million or so dollars short of their goal for funding phase one. Will the province and the feds step up and help out, or will this be one project that might not get done for a while as the province is forced to tighten its belt?
At a time where this province's economic forecast was just seeing some bright spots at the end of the rainbow, now comes a reduction in investment and job creation.
And don't forget that the provincial government has to come up with the $1.6 billion tax incentive given to the province to adopt the HST.
I had to laugh this week when a friend of mine suggested that we should be writing our local members of Parliament to urge the prime minister to forget about the $1.6 billion. Does anyone honestly think that the Feds are in a position to do that? No. We have to pay it back, and who gets to pay it back? We do - the taxpayers. So that means more belt tightening will be needed by government and more possible funding cuts to programs and services.
So when I hear people complaining about losing this service and that service, I want everyone to remember how you voted in this referendum. You might not have liked the tax and the way it came in, but it was benefiting this province and now the uphill battle begins - a battle that I'm sure hoping government is ready for.
